


for you and me, there's nowhere left to hide

by millipop



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Reflection, Season 5 Finale Spoilers, Season/Series 05 Spoilers, insight into bellamy's feelings for clarke, or my take on it anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 23:06:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15617025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/millipop/pseuds/millipop
Summary: ‘You have to forgive her.’‘Now’s not the time, Madi.’When Bellamy closed the hatch of the rocket and left Clarke behind to die six years ago, he had been in love with her.or, an insight into Bellamy's feelings for Clarke in the finale and what it means for them.





	for you and me, there's nowhere left to hide

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't plan to write this, but I was wrecked after the finale for multiple reasons, a big one being that I desperately wanted an emotional conversation between these two and we never got it. But we did get that last shot of them and the barely there breadcrumbs that Madi dropped and watching that again I needed to write out my feelings. This is a kind of catharsis, and what I want Bellamy to be thinking, sort of.  
> Written in about two hours in the middle of the night with limited editing so apologies for mistakes and poor phrasing.
> 
> dedicated to hannah, mary, and ro, who've been with me through the trials of this season. I know it's been rough and it's crushed us quite a bit, I hope this helps a little bit.
> 
> title from firefight by jimmy eat world. enjoy x

_‘You have to forgive her.’_

_‘Now’s not the time, Madi.’_

_*_

When Bellamy closed the hatch of the rocket and left Clarke behind to die six years ago, he had been in love with her.

With six years on the Ring to think about it, without war or life-threatening situations in the way, without betrayal and death and impossible choices to distract him, he’s become pretty sure about it. He might not have consciously known it, might not have been able to physically put the words in his mouth even if someone had asked him outright, but it’s obvious when he looks back.

It’s in the feeling of hugging her in their oxygen suits, of his hand on her shoulder as she carried the weight of deciding who lived and died, of being so damn angry at her but not being able to hate her, of her hurtling into his arms after what felt like a lifetime. It started then, for him.

He doesn’t know what he was going to say to her, on that beach. Maybe the words would have leapt out of his throat before he knew what they meant. Maybe he would have just stuttered and said something bullshit that sounded profound. He’s simultaneously regretful and relieved that she didn’t let him finish. Relieved, because how could he have lived, mourned, missed her, knowing she didn’t feel the same way? Regretful, because she deserved to how he felt before he lost her anyway.

Bellamy had six years to come to terms with all of it. Six years to consider, six years to mourn, six years to follow her last words of advice.

He saw her in all of his family on the Ring. In Raven’s dogged determination, in Harper’s mothering, in Monty’s inventive solutions, in Emori’s delight in learning, in Murphy’s growing isolation. Maybe that’s why he gravitated towards Echo. Because she was so utterly different that he wasn’t haunted, but she was also someone to forgive. Just like he and Clarke too many times before.

And somehow, sometime, even though it hurt like a bitch as it scabbed, his heart healed over, Clarke still inside, but only a dull ache now. Bellamy built himself closure. He moved on.

And then Madi had appeared like a miracle to save them from such a stupid death after all they’d been through, and her casual mention of Clarke had frozen his entire brain. He barely remembers the conversations with Madi or Echo that followed, running on autopilot because the most important thing was Getting Her Back. When Diyoza questions Clarke’s importance to him, he doesn’t hesitate to confirm it.

The days that followed had his brain suddenly rewiring back to having Clarke with him, having her speak in that soft serious voice of hers, having her steady piercing gaze back on him, regaining the memory of hugging her.

But it’s different. Of course it is. Bellamy had thought he’d never see her again, and now she was so utterly different, short hair, a cacophony of guns, and so fiercely protective over one soul (not him) that it feels like they’ve switched.

It pains him, knowing he neglected her in those crucial weeks at the bunker. That he missed all the signals she was putting out, because they couldn’t read each other anymore. And he knows he fucked up, in betraying her trust, because he should have sat down and explained. Should have made her understand it was the only way any of them could survive, especially her. He couldn’t lose her again.

The slap across his face sent his world tumbling. Watching her face break open so raw, so _hurt_. And then she walked out, leaving him to die at the hands of his sister, and the scars on his heart stung and cracked.

Bellamy doesn’t know if Octavia had been wrong or right. A traitor who he loves. He knows it was meant to be a bait, meant to be a dig at Echo, and a dig at his feelings that she must have noticed before he did, six years ago. He can’t be in love with Clarke anymore, not now that he has Echo, not with how long it’s been and how things have changed. But it feels wrong to demand it be in past tense.

Besides, it doesn’t matter. In six years to reflect on his relationship with Clarke, he’s glad he never said something. She’d been in love with Lexa, after all, and it would have complicated things. He’s sure that his feelings wouldn’t have been reciprocated, not to the same degree as his.

And now he’s vindicated. No matter what he did, she’s the one who left him to die. Something that he knows, after regretting it every moment for six years even though it was necessary, he couldn’t do again. A part of his brain tells him that she couldn’t ever love him, not if when he’s over her and angry at her and he still couldn’t do it.

Bellamy had been in love with Clarke Griffin, and then everything changed, and then everything didn’t, and all he sees is proof she never loved him back. And he’s okay with that. It makes it easier not to forgive her.

Until.

_*_

_‘Do you have any idea how much she cares about you?’_

_‘So much, she left me to die in a fighting pit.’_

_‘That was a mistake. How many mistakes did you make to protect the child you loved?’_

_‘That was different.’_

_‘Was it? I shouldn’t tell you this, but when you were on the Ring, she called you on the radio every day for six years. You didn’t know that, did you?’_

_*_

Bellamy wasn’t wrong in telling Madi it wasn’t the time. All he wants to do, after she tells him, after he looks back at Clarke waiting anxiously in the doorway of the ship (it brings him back to all those years ago, hoping she’d close the door so they’d all live, but not so soon he would get roasted by Raven’s rocket fuel), is talk to her.

Ask her why she never told him. They had time in the desert. He even asked her how she survived alone, and she’d mentioned Madi and then made excuses. At the time, it was just another sign. But now. Now there’s an excuse for being avoidant.

Was there a reason she didn’t want to tell him?

But he can’t ruminate, not in the five seconds before everything is wind rushing through his ears, of getting his family on the ship and maybe revealing to her his own secret. That he can’t leave them behind like he left her.

And she didn’t leave him behind this time. Not like he did. Not like she did.

They take off with seconds to spare, and then he’s dealing with rowdy miners and she’s in medical for hours with her mother and everything is noise, noise noise.

Finally he sees her sitting in the crowded hallway, and he’s next to her before he realises it. Her face is closed off, apprehensive, and their talk is just as awkward. And when she asks how he can forgive her, he takes the easy way out and makes a joke. Madi has been their source of conflict since he got back and maybe now she’s their way back to how it used to be, and it’s easy to use her as an excuse.

The truth is Bellamy is annoyed at himself.

Because if he’s being honest, he forgave Clarke before Madi even said a thing about the radio calls. He forgave Clarke because she’s always made the impossible choice, whether it was letting him open the bunker door or leaving him after Mount Weather. Clarke was wrong this time, but if she could forgive him all those years ago at the base of that tree, the best and worst night of his life, it would take something pretty damn evil not to give that back to her. She’s not Octavia.

Because if he’s being _actually_ honest, maybe he never truly stopped being in love with Clarke Griffin, and something tells him that maybe he was wrong about her never feeling the same. Not when he looks back. Not after what Madi revealed to him today. And it scares him half to death.

So as he swings himself into his cryopod, after he’s said his goodnight to everyone else, he looks over to her already frozen over form, and he gives himself ten years. Ten years, and he’ll sort this mess out. Ten years, and they’ll _talk_. Ten years, and maybe then they’ll be home.

_*_

_No one writes songs about the ones that come easy._

_*_

Bellamy wakes up to seeing Clarke’s face, and the first thing he feels is relief.

The first thing he hears is her small ‘hey’, and he doesn’t know how he could ever not forgive her.

And then they meet Monty and Harper’s _son_ and everything that follows, and he’s even more immensely glad that she’s the one standing beside him through it all, watching as two people he loved grew old without them. They sacrificed themselves, and Monty Green brought them a new world.

Jordan flicks the switches and the viewport sinks down. It’s then he fully grasps it. Earth is gone, Monty and Harper are gone. They’re at a new fucking planet.

Monty says goodbye. Clarke’s crying and he’s crying. The new planet is beautiful.

And he tugs her in, without hesitation. She rests her head on his shoulder as they look out at their new future.

He hopes they live up to it. He hopes one hundred and twenty-five years is enough time.

He hopes that whatever happens, Clarke is at his side. Home.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> here's to finishing a rough season and hopefully getting actual emotions out of the next one, if you're still with me. also a toast to Monty Green and Harper McIntyre, two of the original delinquents. I'll miss you guys so much.
> 
> i'm on [twitter](http://twitter.com/biakebell) and [tumblr](http://millipop.tumblr.com)


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